China

Archived

The Central Tibetan Administration has confirmed reports that well-respected Tulku Hungkar Dorje, the throne holder of Lungngon Monastery in Gade County, Golog, in Tibet’s traditional province of Amdo, has passed away after going missing for a prolonged period. According to reliable sources, Chinese officials have notified senior religious figures at Lungngon Monastery of his death on 2 April 2025 but have refused to return his body or provide details about the circumstances of his death.

Tulku Hungkar Dorje, a widely respected religious leader and philanthropist, was reportedly detained by Chinese authorities in early 2024. In August 2024, Chinese officials claimed he had “gone missing” shortly after he gave a public teaching on 21 July 2024. Subsequently, conflicting reports emerged about his whereabouts. The confirmation of his suspicious demise represents the latest case in China’s ongoing campaign of repression against Tibetan religious and cultural leaders.

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Sources indicate that Chinese authorities targeted Tulku Hungkar Dorje on fabricated charges after he declined to arrange an elaborate reception for the Chinese government-appointed Panchen Lama during his visit to the Golog region. Additional accusations included “disobeying higher authorities” for his philanthropic work of establishing monasteries and schools, and “causing disturbances” for advocating for the rights and freedom of marginalized Tibetans under the repressive Chinese rule.

The death of a well-respected Tibetan religious figure follows a disturbing pattern of Chinese authorities targeting influential Tibetan figures who promote Tibetan culture, language, and identity. The detention, torture, and killing of respected leaders like Tulku Hungkar Dorje is a deliberate strategy to silence those who advocate for Tibetans’ fundamental rights.

Archived

As a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand last Friday, the temblor rattled buildings across the sprawling Thai capital of Bangkok, home to an incredible 142 skyscrapers. When the shaking ceased all were standing strong — with one very notable exception. The State Audit Office (SAO) building in Chatuchak district, a 30-story skyscraper still under construction by a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise, collapsed into a heap of rubble, trapping nearly 100 people inside.

As of this week, 15 have been confirmed dead in the collapse, and a further 72 remain missing. Thailand announced over the weekend that it was launching an investigation to determine the cause of the collapse, and the prime minister said the tragedy had seriously damaged the country’s image.

As emergency teams sifted through the wreckage in the immediate aftermath, the building’s primary contractor, China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group, came under intense public anger and scrutiny. Anger was further fueled by clear efforts by the company, and by Chinese authorities, to sweep the project and the tragedy under the rug.

Shortly after the collapse, the China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group removed a post from its WeChat account that had celebrated the recent capping of the building, praising the project as the company’s first “super high-rise building overseas,” and “a calling card for CR No. 10’s development in Thailand.” Archived versions of this and other posts were shared by Thais on social media, including one academic who re-posted a deleted promo video to his Facebook account — noting with bitter irony that it boasted of the building’s tensile strength and earthquake resistance.

Trying to access news of the building collapse inside China [...] queries on domestic search engines returned only deleted articles from Shanghai-based outlets such as The Paper (澎湃新闻) and Guancha (观察网). In a post to Weibo, former Global Times editor Hu Xijin (胡锡进) confessed that the building “probably had quality issues.” Even this post was rapidly deleted, making clear that the authorities were coming down hard on the story.

Meanwhile, the machinery of propaganda continued to turn out feel-good news on China’s response to the quake. The Global Times reported that emergency assistance for Myanmar embodied Xi Jinping’s foreign policy vision of a “community of shared future for mankind.” In Hong Kong, the Ta Kung Pao (大公報) newspaper, run by the Liaison Office of China’s central government, twisted the knife into the United States as it reported on the earthquake response, noting the absence of USAID, recently dismantled by the Trump administration. Behind the news, the paper declared, “China’s selfless response demonstrates the responsibility of a great power.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/32116772

Archived

The tragic collapse of a skyscraper in Bangkok [which was the only building that collapsed during the recent earthquake in Thailand], behind the same Chinese contractors associated with the works on Novi Sad railway station, has opened new questions about the security of Chinese projects around the world. While CNN and the Telegraph are investigating the responsibility of Chinese companies in detail, Serbia has reason to follow the developments related to this case with special attention.

While the safety of the Novi Sad railway station and the responsibility of the Chinese contractors from the CRIC-CCCC consortium, led by the China Railway International Company, are still being investigated in Serbia, the new tragedy has once again raised an avalanche of questions about the safety and reliability of projects implemented by Chinese construction companies around the world. In question is the collapse of a skyscraper in Bangkok, the construction of which, according to international media, was entrusted to the company China Railway Number 10 Engineering Group - a related entity of the state corporation that also operates in Serbia.

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The project worth more than two billion Thai baht (about 45 million pounds), built for three years, was led by a company whose actors are known to the public in Serbia - the Italian-Thai corporation Italian-Thai Development Plc and the company China Railway Number 10 (Thailand) Ltd. The latter is the local branch of the Chinese giant China Railway Number 10 Engineering Group, with a share of 49 percent, which is the maximum share of foreign companies in Thai companies, according to the Telegraph, referring to local source The Nation.

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The investigation by the Thai Ministry of Industry is focused on the possible reasons for this disaster, among which are issues of the quality of the steel used, a poor construction project, as well as the possible inadequacy of the specific construction method - the so-called "flat slab" slabs, i.e. flat slabs that lie directly on the pillars, without classic supporting beams. In addition, experts point out the problem of the ground on which Bangkok rests: the soft and unstable ground could significantly increase the effects of the earthquake.

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What further strengthened the suspicion of omissions in the construction process was the deletion of all posts by China Railway Number 10 Group on Chinese social networks related to this project.

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The lack of responses to media inquiries also points to possible attempts to cover up responsibility, which is of particular concern in partner countries around the world, including Serbia, where Chinese contractors have already faced safety issues in the tragic collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station.

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Beijing’s cross-border crackdown on Taiwanese independence supporters is expected to escalate, extending beyond China and its territories to “China-friendy” countries and those with Chinese police stations, a Taiwanese national security officials said yesterday.

Following the conclusion of China’s annual parliamentary meetings last month, China’s cross-border repression is expected to expand, the officials said.

Beijing’s annual work conference on Taiwan affairs was held on Feb. 25 and 26, followed by the “two sessions” — the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference — from March 5 to 11, they said.

Those perceived to support Taiwanese or Tibetan independence face increased risks of police interrogation, arbitrary arrest and indictment on false charges when they visit mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and certain “China-friendly” countries, they said.

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The caution not only extends to China — countries that maintain good relations with Beijing might also pose a risk, as local police may exercise pressure and intimidation, the officials said.

In countries with Chinese overseas police stations, Taiwanese might be questioned or falsely accused of crimes, they added.

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Archived

[This is an op-ed by Salih Hudayar who is serving as the Foreign Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. He is also the leader of the East Turkistan National Movement and has been a prominent voice for the rights and self-determination of the East Turkistani people.]

For over a decade, the world has witnessed mounting evidence of internment camps, forced sterilizations, family separations, religious and cultural persecution, organ harvesting, forced labor, and high-tech surveillance emerging from East Turkistan—an occupied nation China refers to as the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” These atrocities, targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples, have led multiple governments, including the United States, to designate China’s actions as genocide, while the United Nations has identified them as crimes against humanity. The genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other Turkic peoples is routinely framed as mere human rights violation or a symptom of authoritarian overreach. Such framing obscures the root cause: the illegal occupation and ongoing colonization of East Turkistan by China.

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East Turkistan, home to the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples, has a long and distinct sovereign history, culture, and identity separate from that of China. While the Manchu Qing Empire occupied the nation in 1759, Qing occupation over East Turkistan has never been continuous or consensual. The people of East Turkistan persistently resisted, launching 42 uprisings between 1759 and 1864, and regained independence as the State of Yette Sheher (1864–1877), before being re-occupied by the Qing Empire in December 1877.

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The ongoing Uyghur genocide is the latest phase in [a] decades-long campaign. It has moved beyond political repression into a full-fledged effort to destroy the East Turkistani nation physically, culturally, and psychologically. Millions of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples have been arbitrarily detained in concentration camps, where they are subjected to indoctrination, torture, sexual violence, and forced labor. Furthermore, experts estimate that at least 25,000 to 50,000 Uyghurs are being killed annually solely for their organs. Uyghur and other Turkic women are forcibly sterilized or forced to undergo abortions to prevent the birth of future generations. Over a million Uyghur and other Turkic children are separated from their families and placed in state-run boarding schools designed to sever their cultural and linguistic ties. Over 16,000 Mosques, cemeteries, and historic sites have been demolished, while Uyghur and other Turkic language instruction has been eliminated from public education.

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What makes this genocide even more insidious is its bureaucratic and technological sophistication. The CCP uses AI surveillance, biometric data collection, and big data policing to monitor and control every aspect of East Turkistani life. Genocide in East Turkistan is not committed with bombs or mass graves—it is executed with facial recognition cameras, QR codes, “predictive policing” apps, forced sterilizations, forced abortions, organ harvesting, and crematoriums to hide the evidence.

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Chinese strategists have long seen East Turkistan as a buffer protecting the Chinese state from perceived threats to its west and north. This logic continues to shape Beijing’s approach today: the occupation of East Turkistan is central to advancing China’s geopolitical ambitions, including control over critical infrastructure, access to Central Asia, and the stability of its broader colonial system. The erasure of East Turkistan is not about internal security—it is about imperial consolidation and expansion.

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International legal mechanisms must be pursued with urgency. This includes supporting East Turkistan’s case at the International Criminal Court and filing additional cases at the International Court of Justice, sanctioning Chinese officials and entities involved in the genocide, and supporting investigations under universal jurisdiction laws in national courts.

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Archived

China Vanke swung to a net loss in 2024 and warned of intensifying financial pressure ahead as the developer continues to feel the strain of China's years-long property crisis.

The Shenzhen-based developer, one of the biggest property groups in China, reported a net loss of 49.48 billion yuan, equivalent to $6.82 billion, for 2024. That compared with a profit of 12.16 billion yuan a year earlier.

In a filing on Monday, the company attributed the loss to fewer completed and settled projects and gross profit margin of its development business, financial losses, and other factors.

Revenue fell 26% to 343.18 billion yuan in 2024.

Vanke said it faces concentrated repayment of public debts in 2025 that will ramp up the pressure it is already under. The company said it has engaged in "self-rescue" with the support of various parties, but that liquidity risks have not been fully resolved.

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[Despite government support] many property developers are struggling to stay afloat, saddled with big piles of debts and weak demand. An inability to tap debt markets has led to defaults on loans and bond payments, and even bankruptcy.

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• China's military says drills are a warning against Taiwan independence
• China's military video calls Taiwan president a 'parasite'
• Lai depiction 'not conducive to peace', says Taiwan
• Taiwan dispatches military aircraft, ships in response
• De facto US embassy in Taipei pledges support for Taiwan

China staged military drills off Taiwan's north, south and east coasts on Tuesday as a "stern warning" against separatism and called Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te a "parasite," as Taiwan sent warships to respond to China's navy approaching its shores.

The exercises, which China has not formally named unlike war games last year, are happening after a rise in Chinese rhetoric against Lai and follow on the heels of U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth's Asia visit, during which he repeatedly criticised Beijing.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31997711

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The Australian government has ramped up scrutiny on the education centres in recent years over concerns that Beijing is using them to spread propaganda and spy on Chinese international students.

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There have been growing global concerns about the Chinese government's reach overseas through such education centres, with universities in America and Europe also choosing to close some of their branches.

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Confucius centres have now been removed from the campuses of the University of Melbourne, the University of Queensland (UQ), the University of Western Australia (UWA) and the University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).

Several universities cited disruptions caused by the Covid pandemic as the reason for not renewing their CI contracts.

A spokesperson for UNSW said the university was developing its own programme in Chinese studies and is committed to "encouraging open dialogue in the China-Australia bilateral relationship".

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31994855

Archived

The Xiaomi SU7, which has been lauded for its safety features since its March 2024 market launch, has recorded its first widely reported fatal accident, resulting in the deaths of three female university students.

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Initial reports on Chinese social media claimed the vehicle caught fire after a collision, with allegations that the “doors could not be unlocked, preventing escape.” The incident quickly gained attention as the first publicly reported fatality involving Xiaomi’s flagship electric vehicle.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31892052

Archived

In late February, representatives of a Thai Muslim organization brought a reassuring message to 40 Uyghur men terrified they were going to be sent back to China: The government had no immediate plans to deport them.

Less than 72 hours later, the men were on a plane bound for China’s far west Xinjiang region, where U.N. experts say they could face torture or other punishment.

Thailand decided to deport the men more than a month earlier, while denying plans to do so to the public, lawmakers and Muslim religious leaders until almost the very end, according to testimony from parliamentary inquiries, interviews, meeting notes and voice messages. That gave the detainees and their advocates no chance to make a last-ditch appeal before they were bundled off and sent back to China.

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Thai officials [...] have also said the men returned voluntarily, despite evidence to the contrary.

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The men deported last month were part of a larger group of Uyghurs detained in Thailand in 2014 after fleeing China. That left Thailand facing competing demands from Beijing and Washington.

Beijing said the Uyghurs were terrorists and wanted them sent back, but hasn’t presented evidence. Uyghur activists and Western officials said the men are innocent and have urged their resettlement elsewhere.

Facing potential backlash from all sides, Thailand kept the men in detention for over a decade.

That changed when Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra took office last year. Her father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has close links to top Chinese officials.

Thai officials began secretly discussing plans to deport the Uyghurs as early as December, a month after Paetongtarn met Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the AP earlier reported.

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Their deportation also caused a diplomatic rift between Thailand and Western countries. On March 14, the U.S. State Department announced visa sanctions on an unknown number of Thai officials for their role in the deportations, while the EU parliament passed a resolution condemning the deportation.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31892983

Archived

TLDR:

• China has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system that adds to its already powerful censorship machine, scanning content for all kinds of topics like corruption, military issues, Taiwan politics, satire
• The discovery was accidental, security researchers found an Elasticsearch database unsecured on the web, hosted by Chinese company Baidu
• Experts highlight that AI-driven censorship is evolving to make state control over public discourse even more sophisticated, especially after recent releases like China's AI model DeepSeek

A complaint about poverty in rural China. A news report about a corrupt Communist Party member. A cry for help about corrupt cops shaking down entrepreneurs.

These are just a few of the 133,000 examples fed into a sophisticated large language model that’s designed to automatically flag any piece of content considered sensitive by the Chinese government.

A leaked database seen by TechCrunch reveals China has developed an AI system that supercharges its already formidable censorship machine, extending far beyond traditional taboos like the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The system appears primarily geared toward censoring Chinese citizens online but could be used for other purposes, like improving Chinese AI models’ already extensive censorship.

Xiao Qiang, a researcher at UC Berkeley who studies Chinese censorship and who also examined the dataset, told TechCrunch that it was “clear evidence” that the Chinese government or its affiliates want to use LLMs to improve repression.

“Unlike traditional censorship mechanisms, which rely on human labor for keyword-based filtering and manual review, an LLM trained on such instructions would significantly improve the efficiency and granularity of state-led information control,” Qiang said.

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The dataset was discovered by security researcher NetAskari, who shared a sample with TechCrunch after finding it stored in an unsecured Elasticsearch database hosted on a Baidu server [...] There’s no indication of who, exactly, built the dataset, but records show that the data is recent, with its latest entries dating from December 2024.

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An LLM for detecting dissent

In language eerily reminiscent of how people prompt ChatGPT, the system’s creator tasks an unnamed LLM to figure out if a piece of content has anything to do with sensitive topics related to politics, social life, and the military. Such content is deemed “highest priority” and needs to be immediately flagged.

Top-priority topics include pollution and food safety scandals, financial fraud, and labor disputes, which are hot-button issues in China that sometimes lead to public protests — for example, the Shifang anti-pollution protests of 2012.

Any form of “political satire” is explicitly targeted. For example, if someone uses historical analogies to make a point about “current political figures,” that must be flagged instantly, and so must anything related to “Taiwan politics.” Military matters are extensively targeted, including reports of military movements, exercises, and weaponry.

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Inside the training data

From this huge collection of 133,000 examples that the LLM must evaluate for censorship, TechCrunch gathered 10 representative pieces of content.

Topics likely to stir up social unrest are a recurring theme. One snippet, for example, is a post by a business owner complaining about corrupt local police officers shaking down entrepreneurs, a rising issue in China as its economy struggles.

Another piece of content laments rural poverty in China, describing run-down towns that only have elderly people and children left in them. There’s also a news report about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expelling a local official for severe corruption and believing in “superstitions” instead of Marxism.

There’s extensive material related to Taiwan and military matters, such as commentary about Taiwan’s military capabilities and details about a new Chinese jet fighter. The Chinese word for Taiwan (台湾) alone is mentioned over 15,000 times in the data.

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The dataset [...] say that it’s intended for “public opinion work,” which offers a strong clue that it’s meant to serve Chinese government goals [...] Michael Caster, the Asia program manager of rights organization Article 19, explained that “public opinion work” is overseen by a powerful Chinese government regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), and typically refers to censorship and propaganda efforts.

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Repression is getting smarter

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Traditionally, China’s censorship methods rely on more basic algorithms that automatically block content mentioning blacklisted terms, like “Tiananmen massacre” or “Xi Jinping,” as many users experienced using DeepSeek for the first time.

But newer AI tech, like LLMs, can make censorship more efficient by finding even subtle criticism at a vast scale. Some AI systems can also keep improving as they gobble up more and more data.

“I think it’s crucial to highlight how AI-driven censorship is evolving, making state control over public discourse even more sophisticated, especially at a time when Chinese AI models such as DeepSeek are making headwaves,” Xiao, the Berkeley researcher, said.

SHANGHAI — After unusually warm weather descended on eastern China earlier this week, Shanghai residents dodged the sun’s rays by extending their annual sakura photo shoots well into the night.

The result was an almost-carnivalesque atmosphere that could be felt across the city.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31849971

Archived

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship global infrastructure program was supposed to help expand Beijing’s global influence.

It did.

But rushed construction and poor planning have led to massive environmental destruction in mostly poor countries.

Some projects have degraded highly sensitive ecosystems and displaced scores of local communities.

Beijing says it’s now “greening” its Belt and Road Initiative. But is it?

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China is deploying low-carbon investments through its $1.3 trillion Belt and Road Initiative. But many of these projects come with risks of their own. Case in point: Two hydroelectric dams in Argentina could flood cultural heritage sites and harm one of the world’s largest glacial icefields.

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In a series of agreements between 2009 and 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping extended Argentina billions of dollars in infrastructure loans and currency swaps—allowing Buenos Aires to exchange Chinese yuan for pesos to meet debt repayment deadlines.

These deals deepened Argentina’s dependence on China, which was aggressively expanding its economic footprint in Latin America. The agreements covered a staggering range of projects: nuclear energy, telecommunications, South America’s largest radio telescope and a Chinese-run space station, over which Beijing secured control for 50 years.

The spending spree, analysts say, was fueled by China’s excess capacity at home, the need to create new markets abroad and geopolitical ambitions. As Chinese policy banks showered nations with generous loans, some recipient governments aligned their votes at the United Nations with Beijing, including a measure to block debate on China’s alleged human rights abuses at home.

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A coalition of nonprofits filed a lawsuit in 2015, questioning the Santa Cruz dams’ environmental impact assessment. A second lawsuit, filed by lawyer Enrique Viale, alleged that the government official who approved the assessment is the same person who earlier served as director of the contractor that prepared it.

That environmental impact statement, which is supposed to analyze all of the ecological risks of the dams, is “full of deficiencies,” said Cristian Fernandez, a lawyer with the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation, one of the nonprofits behind the 2015 lawsuit.

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In March 2016, China Development Bank sent Macri [center-right businessman Mauricio Marci replaced Fernandez de Krichner as president in 2015] a letter, urging him to restart operations. The bank drew Macri’s attention to a “cross default” clause in the loan agreement. Should Argentina cancel the Santa Cruz dams project, China had the right to cancel funding for railway revitalization in Argentina’s northern agricultural region. Losing that funding would undercut the ability to sell more soybeans, corn and beef—Argentina’s top exports and a source of badly needed foreign currency.

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Since 2023, China has invested more than $100 billion in renewable energy projects overseas, even as overall spending under the Belt and Road Initiative has declined in recent years.

Human rights experts and conservationists worry this green iteration of the Belt and Road could mirror the environmental and social damage of earlier projects.

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Kenneth Roth, who led the global watchdog group Human Rights Watch for nearly three decades, said Beijing’s motivations haven’t changed.

“China’s trying to buy loyalty,” he said.

Lacking a democratic mandate at home, the Chinese Communist Party places high value on international legitimacy and is wary of formal condemnations from bodies like the U.N. Human Rights Council, Roth said. In 2019, Pakistan’s then-Prime Minister Imran Khan told Roth that his government’s reluctance to speak out about China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which included forced labor, forced sterilizations and re-education camps, was due to fear of economic repercussions. Pakistan, a majority Muslim country, is estimated to be Beijing’s biggest Belt and Road partner. Pakistan was one of several Belt and Road countries that blocked a U.N. rights council debate on the Uyghur issue in 2022.

“China has been trying to use the U.N. to basically dumb down and largely rip up international human rights standards,” Roth said. “It has globalized its censorship very successfully.”

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China’s guardrails around environmentally risky projects are beginning to catch up to lenders like the World Bank, said Rebecca Ray, an economist at Boston University who has written extensively about China’s activity in Latin America.

The difficulty, Ray said, is that many developing countries where China invests have weak environmental ministries and little political will to enforce social protections. China, unlike most development banks and Western governments, doesn’t condition its loans on governance reforms. “China doesn’t care about institution building,” Ray said. “They care about development.”

By 2021, China had environmental and social safeguards in contracts for 57 percent of its infrastructure projects, but only 18 percent showed clear evidence of efforts to reduce environmental and social risks, according to AidData, a university research lab at William & Mary in Virginia.

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[Javier] Milei, a Trump ally and climate-change denier, promised as a candidate to slash Argentina’s bureaucracy and stop all public works projects [work on the Santa Cruz River dams has been on hold since 2023]. To make his point, he waved a chainsaw in the air at rallies and declared in Spanish on social media: “THERE IS NO NEW MONEY!” He also made waves during his campaign by calling Chinese officials “assassins” and promising to avoid deals with “communists.”

In office, however, his stance changed. Among other things, he’s renewed Argentina’s $18 billion currency swap line with China, using some of the funds to meet IMF debt payments. The change in tone, analysts say, is because of the leverage China holds over Buenos Aires.

When Milei took office in 2023, Argentina again faced an economic crisis. That year, Argentina’s inflation broke 200 percent, its lucrative agricultural exports were imperiled by severe drought and Buenos Aires again struggled to meet its debt obligations. **After the International Monetary Fund and private bond holders, China is Buenos Aires’ largest creditor, holding about 13 percent of the nation’s debt. ** “If China calls Argentina’s loans, it will heavily destabilize Argentina’s economy,” said Albe, of the Atlantic Council.

And so, in late February, the same month Milei presented Elon Musk with a chainsaw on stage at a U.S. conservative conference, his administration sent Chinese officials a confidential message.

Argentina, it said, wanted to restart work on one of the dams.

Archived

The controversial exploitation of Afghan mines, involving a Chinese company and local criminal networks through a deal with the Taliban, has come to light, revealing that the Chinese firm has enlisted the help of local drug lord Haji Basheer Noorzai, who was released from US custody in a prisoner exchange in 2022, to facilitate this operation.

The agreement, which lacks transparency and international legitimacy, has sparked serious concerns regarding resource theft, ecological degradation, and human rights violations. The Samti mines in Takhar Province, estimated to contain 20-25 metric tons of gold, have been handed over to Noorzai for extraction.

These mines represent a significant resource for Afghanistan’s economy, part of the country’s extensive mineral wealth. However, the current exploitation is adversely affecting local communities and the environment through unauthorised gold extraction, land appropriation, and forced displacement of residents.

The Chinese company’s operations are protected by Taliban security forces, including personnel from the interior ministry and a 410-member border battalion. The Samti mines, spanning an area of eight kilometers by 1.7 kilometers, could greatly benefit Afghanistan’s economy if managed properly.

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Archived

A financing kick-off meeting has been held for the first phase of the Xuwei nuclear power project in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, China National Nuclear Corporation [CNCC] announced. The plant will supply both industrial heating and electricity by coupling a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with two pressurised water reactors.

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The meeting was attended by representatives of CNNC, CNNC Finance Company, CNNC Jiangsu Energy and Jiangsu Nuclear Power, as well as relevant leaders of banks and financial institutions, including China Development Bank, China Export-Import Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, China Postal Savings Bank, China Merchants Bank, and China CITIC Bank.

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[The nuclear project] Xuwei Phase I was among 11 reactors approved by China's State Council in August last year. CNNC plans to build two 1208 MWe (net) Hualong One units and one 660 MWe high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) unit at the site. The project will be equipped with a steam heat exchange station, which will adopt the heat-to-electricity operation mode for the first time.

Archived

About a decade ago, some Western companies answered Beijing’s calls to invest in Xinjiang, an underdeveloped region in the country’s remote west. Some were drawn by the natural resources there. Others eyed the political points they could score with China.

Today, many of those projects are dead or have been sold off. A visit by a Wall Street Journal reporter earlier this year to Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, found that the site of German carmaker Volkswagen —which was especially eager to invest in the region a little over a decade ago—sits lifeless. The factory, in Urumqi’s Toutunhe economic development zone, was recently sold. The carmaker and its joint venture partner SAIC Motor’s names have been scraped from the gate, leaving a blurry mark.

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Over the years, Xinjiang, home to millions of Turkic-speaking Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities, has become synonymous to some in the West with Beijing’s ruthless clampdown on ethnic minorities. The Chinese government has targeted the minorities in Xinjiang with mass-detention internment camps and omnipresent surveillance as part of a forcible assimilation campaign. China portrays the campaign as an effort to fight religious extremism and terrorists.

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From clothing companies to automakers, businesses have shunned Xinjiang.

“Xinjiang has not only become a place not to invest, but even bidding on projects there or otherwise selling into the market there has become off limits,” said William Zarit, a senior counselor at business consulting firm Cohen Group and a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

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Surveillance is commonplace throughout China, but the scale is far larger in Urumqi [Xinjiang's capital]. Security, including surveillance cameras and special police outposts that have mushroomed in recent years, is heavy throughout the city. Sign posts bearing the local emergency services number, along with a six-digit number identifying the location, stand in front of mosques and other spots, so police can respond immediately to calls. Shoppers entering a large market in the city center were subject to airport-like searches.

Continued control of the Muslim population is evident. At a mosque in the center of Urumqi, the patriotic slogan “Love the Country, Love the Religion” was affixed to the building. Nearby, a red banner hung, which read in Chinese “Love the Party, Love the Country, Love Socialism.”

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Multinational firms soon came under pressure to eliminate forced labor from their supply chains. Volkswagen’s investment in Xinjiang came around a time when the company was expanding in China.

But as Beijing’s crackdown on Xinjiang became apparent, Volkswagen came under pressure. Top executives tried to strike a balancing act. At home, they sought to avoid reputational blowback from investors, consumers and an influential trade union, which holds a seat on the company’s supervisory board.

[...]

In November, Volkswagen said it would sell the Urumqi plant to a state-backed car inspection business. By then, Volkswagen had been surpassed in sales by Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD. BASF is in the process of divesting two plants in Xinjiang, a process that dragged on for a year. Air Liquide’s project there was canceled before it was implemented. Peabody Energy stopped referring to its Xinjiang project in its financial filings after 2014, when it said it intended to advance projects in Asia including “studies underway in Xinjiang.” The company declared bankruptcy in 2016 as tumbling prices crushed the American coal industry, then exited Chapter 11 a year later. It declined to comment.

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These days, China is turning to Central Asia for investment in Xinjiang. The Toutunhe economic development zone, which once touted the Volkswagen investment as a leading project, is busy these days hosting potential investors from Central Asia. Authorities have been building a financial services center in the zone, targeting Central Asian firms.

Last year, authorities signed a memorandum of cooperation with a Kazakh business chamber. In January, officials from Uzbekistan signed a technology and talent exchange cooperation agreement with several Chinese companies in the zone.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31793106

[Canadian Prime Minister] Mark Carney Wednesday rejected accusations from his Conservative rival that he’s beholden to Beijing and said he thinks Canada’s trade-diversification strategy should prioritize boosting commerce with “like-minded countries” in Europe instead of China.

The Canadian government is trying to shift trade away from the United States in the face of growing protectionist tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump and his challenges to Canadian sovereignty, where he argues that Canada should be annexed as the “51st state” because it allegedly can’t exist without the U.S.

Asked if Canada should boost trade with China as it tries to reduce trade with the U.S., Mr. Carney pointed to Europe instead.

“We want to diversify with like-minded partners. That’s why I went to Europe in my first days as Prime Minister,” the Liberal Leader said during a campaign stop in Windsor, Ont., referring to a visit to Paris and London where he talked about Canadian companies playing a greater role in Europe’s military buildup.

“There are partners in Asia with whom we can build deeper ties,” Mr. Carney said. “But the partners in Asia that share our values don’t include China.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31749120

Archived

China is using increasingly sophisticated grey-zone tactics against subsea cables in the waters around Taiwan, using a shadow-fleet playbook that could be expanded across the Indo-Pacific.

[...]

While China has targeted Taiwan’s undersea cables for years as part of its grey-zone operations, it has subtly shifted tactics. Previously, vessels involved in suspected acts of sabotage were registered to China. Now, they are increasingly operating under foreign flags, forming a shadow fleet. This strategy resembles Russia’s subsea cable tactics in the Baltic Sea.

[...]

States such as North Korea and Iran often use shadow fleets—ageing vessels registered under flags of convenience—to get around sanctions, to trade or transport illegal or prohibited goods, or to undertake illegal fishing. The vessels are operated through intricate corporate structures, with shell companies established in one country, management based in another and vessels registered elsewhere again, providing states with deniability. They use deceptive tactics including manipulating identification systems, turning off tracking systems and changing names and flags. If caught, vessels can be easily abandoned and their legal entities dissolved, rendering traditional countermeasures such as sanctions largely ineffective.

Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has relied on a large shadow fleet, not only to evade oil sanctions but also to conduct a campaign of hybrid warfare against NATO—including allegedly damaging European subsea cables and critical infrastructure.

[...]

Taiwan has taken note. In January, it blacklisted 52 Chinese-owned vessels suspected of operating as its shadow fleet registered in countries such as Cameroon, Tanzania, Mongolia, Togo and Sierra Leone. Following the recent cable-cutting incidents, Taiwanese authorities publicised detailed evidence—including vessel ownership, flag state and tracking system manipulation details—to pre-empt China’s denial. They have also been tracking and boarding suspicious vessels. Taiwan recently raised the alarm about a Russian-flagged vessel lurking for weeks over a subsea cable, recognising the growing coordination between China and Russia in hybrid warfare operations.

[...]

However, what happens in the Taiwan Strait will not stay in the Taiwan Strait. China’s shadow-fleet tactics are likely to expand across the Indo-Pacific, where maintaining a level of deniability would be beneficial. China already deploys grey-zone tactics in the region, from intimidation of vessels in the South China Sea and targeted incursions in disputed territorial waters, to strategic infrastructure investments that create leverage over its neighbours. Targeting subsea cable infrastructure is another tactic in Beijing’s coercion toolkit—one that targets connectivity while maintaining plausible deniability and operating in the grey-zones of international law and accountability.

The Indo-Pacific—with its vast maritime distances, congested shipping lanes and uneven surveillance capabilities—is fertile ground for such operations. Frequent accidental cable damage and existing territorial disputes may further complicate attribution and response. The region’s economic ties with China would make coordinating any responses even harder.

[...]

If recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan are any indication, disruptions in the Indo-Pacific are not a question of if, but when. The most effective counter to Beijing’s shadow-fleet operations is exposure through public attribution and communication. After all, a vessel cutting cables near a state’s shores may well be flying a neighbour’s flag but taking its orders from Beijing.

Archived

The threat of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan dominates global discussion about the Taiwan Strait. Far less attention is paid to what is already happening—Beijing is slowly squeezing Taiwan into submission without firing a shot.

Instead of launching a full-blown attack, China is ramping up a full spectrum of coercion: political meddling, economic pressure, information operations, legal manoeuvres, cyberattacks and diplomatic isolation, all conducted within the pressure cooker of constant military threats. The goal? Wear Taiwan down bit by bit until it has no choice but to give in to Beijing’s demand for unification.

[...]

The international community can’t afford to ignore China’s evolving tactics. These coercive strategies don’t just increase tensions; they create a serious risk of miscalculation that could spiral into a larger conflict. That’s why it’s important to keep a close watch on these developments. By tracking China’s actions, policymakers can better understand where the red lines are, strengthen deterrence efforts and help Taiwan remain a resilient democracy.

[...]

One example of coercion is when countries engage with Taiwan in ways deemed unacceptable, Beijing typically responds with strong rhetoric in official statements designed to deter further interaction. [...] in 2024, Beijing’s most common grievance (representing 48 percent of observations) was foreign governments ‘violating China’s One-China principle’—a broad category that encompassed any action perceived as recognising Taiwan as distinct or autonomous, even if it fell short of full diplomatic recognition. Another 22 percent of criticisms stemmed from foreign officials meeting with Taiwanese counterparts, reflecting former president Tsai Ing-wen’s increased participation in international security forums.

In another form of coercion, Beijing consistently and deliberately revokes the tariff-free status of Taiwanese exports as a means of leverage and punishment, as indicated in the graph below. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which is responsible for cross-strait relations policy, has characterised this form of coercion as ‘economic oppression’. In 2024 alone, China imposed trade restrictions on 169 Taiwanese exports, primarily through the removal of tariff-free status; the only exception was polycarbonate, which faced anti-dumping tariffs. Machinery and parts constituted the largest category of Taiwanese exports, followed by plastics.

[...]

[What the linked article illustrates] is only data on two coercion tactics from one year. In future, ASPI intends to expand State of the Strait by developing a searchable public database and assessment platform. That interactive tool will visualise coercion data across domains and years, distil key insights and help policymakers track long-term trends with greater clarity.

The goal is simple: to help decision-makers and the public understand how China is ramping up the pressure, how close we are to a tipping point, and how these tactics are affecting Taiwan’s government, society, and decision-making. Over time, State of the Strait will become an essential resource for tracking China’s tactics and shaping the strategies to counter them.

Safeguard Defenders, a human rights group focused on China, has reviewed data related to arrests, prosecutions, trials, and sentencing, comparing them with previous reports since Xi Jinping came to power.

[...]

The only significant ongoing trend is the reduction in information provided in the reports, contributing to the PRC’s attempts to render China an informational black hole for outside observers, the group says.

[...]

• Transparency in China's criminal justice system continues to decline as SPP and SPC reports remove key data (see below under each section) from their submissions to Congress.

• To make matters worse, the China Judgments Online/Wenshu database—significantly flawed at its best—has effectively been discontinued as of 2024. Prior to this, an analysis covering 2013 to 2020 showed that 35-45% of verdicts announced by the SPC were missing from the database annually. Earlier analyses provide further details and context.

• Since Xi came to power, China has seen approximately 18.5 million prosecutions, with its courts issuing 17 million verdicts (at the first instance) and with approximately 10.5 million arrests (not detentions).

• No data of any kind exists on the number of people detained within the regular criminal justice system, only on those that police later seeks to have arrested.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31700111

Archived

[...]

The Australian sinologist Geremie Barme observes that there are “haunting parallels” between the values shared by [U.S. President] Donald Trump and [China's] Xi Jinping. They both possess autocratic personalities. Their signature chants echo each other: Trump’s “Fight, Fight, Fight” and Xi’s “Struggle, Struggle, Struggle”, and they share values.

[...]

How to measure such a convergence? Helpfully, the Chinese Communist Party compiled a checklist for us. Document No. 9 was published in 2013, during Xi’s first months as president.

The document lists the regime’s “seven taboos” [...]

[...]

The first taboo is “Western constitutional democracy”. Essential to this is the separation of powers. [...] A practical example is that, in a liberal democracy, a citizen can challenge a government decision in court.

But China’s dictators reject this in favour of “the monolithic leadership of the Party”. And Trump’s America, too, [...] The administration chose to ignore the ruling [of a judge to not deport Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador]. White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, said: “It is without doubt the most unlawful order a judge has issued in our lifetimes.”

[...]

Second, the concept of “universal values” is forbidden. Xi regards human rights as a challenge to the rule of the party. And Trump? “The concept that everyone is equal is undermined by the administration’s attack on DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] policies,” says Barme, who has been writing on the growing convergence of US and Chinese values since 2017 on China Heritage [...] Trump is basically pursuing a massive re-segregation by race, class, wealth and values.”

[...]

Xi’s third taboo is “civil society”, which Document No. 9 describes as a “serious form of political opposition”. The party bans or strictly regulates any effort at citizens’ organising for a shared purpose, whether it’s a charity, trade union or environmental NGO [...]

Trump seeks to delegitimise and halt civil society movements with which he disagrees. Trump’s defence secretary in 2020, Mark Esper, has written that Trump asked him to order troops to fire into crowds of Black Lives Matter protesters: “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

Trump pardoned more than 1000 people convicted of invading and vandalising the Capitol on January 6, but says people vandalising Tesla cars will be branded “domestic terrorists” by his administration, opening the prospect of severe punishments. “That’s incredibly familiar territory,” says Barme, citing China’s use of the term “subverting state power” to crush protest movements.

[...]

China’s fourth “unmentionable” is neoliberalism – because it’s an idea that undermines state control of the economy [...] Similarly, Trump is leading a retreat from US neoliberalism by applying new tariffs. He is a mercantilist who believes that government should engineer positive trade balances through market intervention.

[...]

The fifth is independent journalism. China’s censorship and propaganda machinery is notorious for quashing independent reporting and debate. Xi has said that all media outlets in China share the same family name – “the Party”.

In the US, Trump recently [...] said that CNN and MSNBC were “illegal, what they do is illegal” and “has to stop”. Their crime? They “literally write 97.6 per cent bad about me”. Separately, Trump sues media outlets whose coverage he dislikes [and] has threatened to revoke broadcast licences and jail journalists

[...]

China’s sixth taboo is what Xi calls “historical nihilism”. This is aimed at curbing honest accounting for the Party’s previous mistakes such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Criticism of the Party’s past could undermine opinion of the Party’s present, he fears.

Barme says that a showcase of the Trumpian equivalent is his opposition to The New York Times′ 1619 Project, which reframed US history around the experience of slaves. Trump set up a committee in rebuttal, the 1776 Committee. He favours revisionist histories of the Confederacy, slavery and the Civil War.

[...]

The final taboo is against any effort to challenge “reform and opening” as defined by Xi. Barme finds its analogue in Trump’s intolerance for criticism of his executive orders.

The US, of course, remains vastly freer and more contested a society than the People’s Republic. But after a mere two months into Trump’s current term, the trends are all China’s way, seven for seven.

It’s growing harder by the day for Australia and other US allies to claim “shared values” with America under Trump.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31682934

Archived

Top diplomats from France and Indonesia have agreed to a new maritime security project which aims to "to ensure peace and safety" at sea in the Indo-Pacific region.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot’s visit to Jakarta, his second stop on his four-day Asia tour, comes amid ongoing trade tensions between the European Union and Beijing.

He told reporters on Wednesday that the Indo-Pacific Port Security Project "is close to my heart," promising France's support.

Neither he nor his Indonesian counterpart, Sugiono, gave any further details on what exactly the project will entail.

Earlier this month, during a discussion about the project at the Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence, Indonesia's naval chief of staff, Admiral Muhammad Ali, said it would address various maritime security challenges, including piracy, terrorism and other illegal activities, and would likely involve collaboration between several countries in the Indo-Pacific.

[...]

Military cooperation between France and Indonesia has grown in recent years.

French air force planes made a stopover in Jakarta in July as part of a visit to Southeast Asia that was meant to display France’s commitment to regional security.

Archived

Taiwan's National Immigration Agency (NIA) has revoked the residence permits of two more Taiwan-based Chinese influencers after concluding they had openly advocating for China's unification of Taiwan by force.

[...] The NIA said Xiao Wei (小微) and En Qi (恩綺) are required by law to leave Taiwan shortly, but did not specify the deadline for the two to go.

The NIA said the decision to revoke their family-based long-term residence permits came after the agency consulted with [Taiwan's] Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which supervises cross-strait exchanges.

Last week, the NIA had revoked the residence permit of another Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), who openly advocated in her social media account -- Ya Ya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣) -- for China's unification of Taiwan by force.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31647886

Archived

Elon Musk’s aerospace giant SpaceX allows investors from China to buy stakes in the company as long as the funds are routed through the Cayman Islands or other offshore secrecy hubs, according to previously unreported court records.

The rare picture of SpaceX’s approach recently emerged in an under-the-radar corporate dispute in [the U.S. state of] Delaware. Both SpaceX’s chief financial officer and Iqbaljit Kahlon, a major investor, were forced to testify in the case.

In December, Kahlon testified that SpaceX prefers to avoid investors from China because it is a defense contractor. There is a major exception though, he said: SpaceX finds it “acceptable” for Chinese investors to buy into the company through offshore vehicles.

“The primary mechanism is that those investors would come through intermediate entities that they would create or others would create,” Kahlon said. “Typically they would set up BVI structures or Cayman structures or Hong Kong structures and various other ones,” he added, using the acronym for the British Virgin Islands. Offshore vehicles are often used to keep investors anonymous.

Experts called SpaceX’s approach unusual, saying they were troubled by the possibility that a defense contractor would take active steps to conceal foreign ownership interests.

Kahlon, who has long been close to the company’s leadership, has said he owns billions of dollars of SpaceX stock. His investment firm also acts as a middleman, raising money from investors to buy highly sought SpaceX shares. He has routed money from China through the Caribbean to buy stakes in SpaceX multiple times, according to the court filings.

[...]

Federal law [in the U.S.] gives regulators broad power to oversee foreign investments in tech companies and defense contractors. Companies only have to proactively report Chinese investments in limited circumstances, and there aren’t hard and fast rules for how much is too much. However, the government can initiate investigations and then block or reverse transactions they deem a national security threat. That authority typically does not apply to purely passive investments in which a foreign investor is buying only a small slice of a company. But experts said that federal officials regularly ask companies to add up Chinese investments into an aggregate total.

The U.S. government charges that China has a systematic strategy of using even minority investments to secure leverage over companies in sensitive industries, as well as to gain privileged access to information about cutting-edge technology. U.S. regulators view even private investors in China as potential agents of the country’s government, experts said.

[...]

It’s not uncommon for foreigners to buy U.S. stock through a vehicle in the Cayman Islands, often to save money on taxes. But experts said it was strange for the party on the other side of a deal — the U.S. company — to prefer such an arrangement.

ProPublica spoke to 13 national security lawyers, corporate attorneys and experts in Chinese finance about the SpaceX testimony. Twelve said they had never heard of a U.S. company with such a requirement and could not think of a purpose for it besides concealing Chinese ownership in SpaceX. The 13th said they had heard of companies adopting the practice as a way to hide foreign investment.

[...]

The new material adds to the questions surrounding Musk’s extensive ties with China, which have taken a new urgency since the world’s richest man joined the Trump White House. Musk has regularly met with Communist Party officials in China to discuss his business interests in the country, which is where about half of Tesla cars are built.

[...]

The Delaware court records reveal SpaceX insiders’ intense preoccupation with secrecy when it comes to China and detail a network of independent middlemen peddling SpaceX shares to eager Chinese investors. (Unlike a public company, SpaceX exercises significant control over who can buy into the company, with the ability to block sales even between outside parties.)

[...]

The experts said the court testimony is puzzling enough that it raises the possibility that SpaceX has more substantial ties to China than are publicly known and is working to mask them from U.S. regulators. A more innocent explanation, they said, is that SpaceX is seeking to avoid scrutiny of perfectly legal investments by the media or Congress.

[...]

Musk’s business interests in China extend far beyond SpaceX’s ownership structure — a fact that has drawn criticism from Republican lawmakers over the years. In 2022, after Tesla opened a showroom in the Chinese region where the government runs Uyghur internment camps, then-Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted, “Nationless corporations are helping the Chinese Communist Party cover up genocide.”

[...]

In recent years, the billionaire has offered sympathetic remarks about China’s desire to reclaim Taiwan and lavished praise on the government. “My experience with the government of China is that they actually are very responsive to the people,” Musk said toward the end of Trump’s first term. “In fact, possibly more responsive to the happiness of people than in the U.S.”

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/59490626

The Beijing-based company Emposat had planned to operate a satellite ground station in the village of Vlkoš in South Moravia. However, Czech PM Petr Fiala’s cabinet rejected the project due to concerns that it could be used for spying.